TRANSCRIPT

As a neuroscientist pain is definitely the sensation I’m interested in because everyone knows about it and everyone wants to get away from it as fast as they can.

I probably became most fascinated with the senses when I was about seven and my dad set up a strawberry farm for my mum. Because strawberries are a extremely delicious fruit, and I’d say I worked on that farm with my parents for probably about 10 years whilst I was still in school.

Now as far as the sensation of pain is concerned, when I was 11 my brother and I had the ominous task of getting some difficult livestock back from a neighbouring paddock into our own and I became incredibly frustrated to see these animals mucking around in the corner of the paddock so I tried to lure them with some pretend food before I knew it, I heard this almighty yell and I turned around right in time to get smacked straight between the eyes by a branch of a tree. That was pretty painful lots and lots of blood lots of crying.

It actually healed incredibly well and I was intrigued by that. This definitely sparked my interest in human physiology how the body works to make things right again.

So from the strawberry farm to the neuroscience lab and its in here that my students and I research pain.

I’m particularly interested in this area because my injury healed and the pain went away but unfortunately for up to as many as one in five Australians the pain never goes away.

Chronic pain is pain that lasts for more than three months or at least up to three months and is unresponsive to treatment.

The pain we’re mainly looking at is neuropathic pain which happens after nerve damage. However there’s nothing to say that we wouldn’t be able to treat other chronic pains like migraine, arthritis possibly even the pain that comes from shingles and diabetes.

The research in this lab mainly focuses on the nerve cells or neurons which run from the skin or the muscle towards the spinal cord and we’re mainly focusing on those that transmit sensations in particular those that transmit painful sensations.

When we look at these cells the main thing that I’ve become interested in is the sugars that are on the surfaces of these cells. These sugars seem to be involved in helping a neuron to find its target to make a synapse so it can communicate with another neuron.

What we’re thinking could be happening is that these sugars are changing when a nerve is damaged and the neurons are not able to communicate properly, so the brain will get a constant barrage of information suggesting that the person is actually in pain. Pain really is a life wrecker when it’s not controlled.

The ultimate goal of this research is to find a selective pain killer for people who have very few options left for pain management.

When I’m not in the lab dealing with pain I like to indulge one of my other senses - I love to sing I find it’s a great release from studying pain.

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peter j groves - 08 Jan 2012 11:36:29am

Dear Dr Gerke, I am the co-ordinator for the Arachnoiditis group based in Queensland and would really appreciate your research updates, I was a victim of myodil and dima x, back in the 1970`s and suffer `spinal Adhsive Arachnoiditis`with caude equine syndrome`, I have been active in trying to get recognition and acceptance in the medical community where there has been constant denial that this iatrogenic disease exists. regards.peter j grovesco-ordinator for Arachnoiditis Sufferers Queensaland Australia (ASQA)

Dr Michelle Gerke - 30 Jun 2011 6:34:50am

Dear Doctor Gerke ,Reading your text below was very interesting reading as I am acute pain nurse in one of the NSW Public Hospital. Chronic pain is such a complex study and services are so limited. Good luck with your research we need all the help we can get with this issue.